Comments on: Could FaceBook risk becoming another AOL?

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By: How should Banks react to web based application providers « The Bankwatch

How should Banks react to web based application providers « The Bankwatch — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 03:52:51 +0000

[...] while back I posted the thought that FaceBook looks like the old AOL. The catalyst for that thought at the time, [...]

By: Facebook | will people share their pictures, thoughts and information with commercial interests « The Bankwatch

Sun, 27 May 2007 00:03:35 +0000

[...] What bothers me about the Facebook F8 aproach is the move towards propietariness (is that a word). Hence my AOL post. [...]

By: Colin

Colin — Fri, 25 May 2007 23:39:32 +0000

Thanks for the comments, from both of you. I agree success will be derived from the value seen by the users, and it will be fascinating to watch this evolve.

By: Kurt Gooden

Kurt Gooden — Fri, 25 May 2007 22:56:36 +0000

Colin, to build upon Joaquin’s comment, I would just add emphasis that the value in the integration is using the assets available in Facebook and not just using it as a portal for links. Facebook has an immense social network established with built in information on all its users. New useful and sustainable applications on this platform will utilize these assets (such as a trust network) that would be very difficult to replicate elsewhere.

No other application (and I have been on a lot) has been able to build such an extensive database of all my connections/contacts with such little effort in such a short period.

People left AOL because there was everything they used and more outside the wall. There are things inside the Facebook wall that are not currently available elsewhere, that is the difference. I think there is far greater risk in another social network displacing it than openness.

By: Joaquin Delgado

Joaquin Delgado — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:51:57 +0000

Hi, I’m the CTO of Lending Club. I just wanted to clarify that the integration with facebook is not only about the UI touch points. That is just scratching the surface. It’s really all about the exchange of data and the ability to create new computational models that apply to social networks. For example, our proprietary LendingMatch(R) algorithm, computes and generates optimal (with respect to a risk level) fully diversified loan portfolios that also take into consideration the “connections” between the lender and the borrowers. In the case of facebooks these connections are obtain through querying their back-end on information about groups and (mostly authenticated) networks which include workplace, schools/colleges, etc. This makes total sense as trust and peer pressure, the primary barrier to social/P2P lending, can now be modeled leveraging the power of the network. I’m sure you will see other social networks moving towards this concept of enabling social applications pretty soon. We would love to hear from you as Lending Club is interested in expanding its reach beyond facebook.